According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, financial data disclosed by OpenAI to investors shows that the company's employee compensation has reached the peak of modern technology startups. OpenAI currently has approximately 4,000 employees, with an average equity incentive of $1.5 million per employee, equivalent to about 10.51 million RMB.

OpenAI

Image source note: The image is AI-generated, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney

This figure is more than seven times the equity incentives announced by Google in 2003, when Google had not yet gone public in 2004. Compared to 18 other large tech companies, this compensation figure is 34 times higher than the average compensation of these companies in the year before their IPOs. These figures have been adjusted for inflation to align with the 2025 USD pricing standard.

The reason OpenAI can offer such high equity incentives is mainly to attract and retain top talent in the competitive artificial intelligence field. This high salary has placed OpenAI employees among the highest earners in Silicon Valley. However, this compensation model also brings significant operational losses to the company and rapidly dilutes existing shareholders' equity.

As competition in the artificial intelligence industry intensifies, other tech giants have also launched generous compensation packages. For example, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he will offer compensation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to executives and top researchers from competitors, with some positions reaching as high as $1 billion. This has put more pressure on OpenAI's salaries and led to the loss of some key employees.

Zuckerberg's large-scale talent acquisition efforts have attracted over 20 employees from OpenAI, including Zhao Shengjia, a co-developer of ChatGPT. This summer, OpenAI also issued one-time bonuses to some researchers and engineers, with some employees receiving bonuses worth millions of dollars.

It is expected that OpenAI's equity incentive expenses will increase by about $3 billion annually by 2030. Recently, the company also revised its original policy, abolishing the rule that employees could only qualify for equity vesting after six months of employment. This will further increase compensation costs. It is expected that by 2025, OpenAI's compensation expenses will account for 46% of the company's revenue, a ratio second only to electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian among 18 major tech companies.

Key points:

💰 OpenAI employees receive an average annual equity incentive of $1.5 million, far exceeding industry standards.

📉 The compensation model has brought operational losses to OpenAI and accelerated shareholder equity dilution.

🚀 Intensifying competition has prompted tech giants to enhance their compensation plans to attract top talent.